Did you know that Raiffeisen Bank has a great program for holders of their Maestro card (20 CHF/year) Show your card and get in 400 Swiss museums for free (including Ballenberg and the Museum of Transport in Lucerne). You can also get half-price fares on boats, hotels and trains in the Berner Oberland. Also special rates on concert tickets. One card gets 1 adult and up to 5 kids in for free, so if you are a couple you need two cards.

Here is the link:
http://memberplus.raiffeisen.ch/de/r...board_flash_de

that's one of the first things we got when we moved to Switzerland. It's an absolute treat, well and truly got my money's worth from it. Especially lime the fact that you can just walk into a poorly known museum somewhere - even if its only open for another hour - and you never risk you'll be ripped off. might be really bad but I've come across some really fascinating little museums where I never would have gone if I had to pay.

Ballenberg I can also highly recommend if you like history / architecture / traditions. The transport museum as far as I know is only half price these days with the card, not completely free.

And here is the link to the list of all the museums included for all those interested. From next month on, the rest of the museums in Basel will also be included again after they had a financial dispute and were not part of the scheme this year.